Folly of the Highest Order?

“The enemy is within the gates; it is with our own luxury, our own folly, our own criminality that we have to contend.”

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, January 106 BC-7 December 43 BC

When news first broke the IRS had targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny over their applications for tax exempt status, there seemed a logical explanation. But as time wore on, we became reminded of Richard Milhous Nixon and impeachment charges that he used the IRS to target those on his enemies list.

According to The Wall Street Journal and others, there had been a spike in applications for “social welfare” status by groups whose name indicated political activity. These include monikers with Tea Party, Patriot, 9/12 and other references generally associated with conservative groups.

Supposedly, IRS officials in the Cincinnati office alone decided to take a closer look at some of these requests because of a quantum jump in applications for what is known in federal statutes as 501(c)(4) status.

But as is often the case with political shenanigans, this was only part of the story.

Reports now indicate higher-up IRS officials in Washington were involved as well as those from two other IRS offices.

By Monday, The Washington Post was reporting “IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea-party-affiliated groups, the documents show.

IRS inquiries of 501(c)(4) applicants have also pried into the personal lives of those involved, according to other news reports. One applicant became so concerned about the personal questions she fearfully gave up.

Additionally, it has become apparent that rather than simply ramping up its audits of applications last year, added IRS scrutiny has been traced back to at least 2010, before the congressional elections.

Even more disturbing, however, has been the denial this was happening.

As reported by The Post: “I wrote to the IRS three times last year after hearing concerns that conservative groups were being targeted,” Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement Monday. “In response to the first letter I sent with some of my colleagues, Steven Miller, the current Acting IRS Commissioner, responded that these groups weren’t being targeted.”

To his credit, President Obama has condemned the behavior of IRS officials and promised that it would be dealt with appropriately.

Unlike with Nixon, there is no trail of political gunpowder residue leading to the White House and a smoking gun — as yet.

But regardless of where the trail does lead, this recent episode should go to reinforce the notion that government has become too big and too out of control. It was a fear brought into the modern public consciousness as far back as 1949 when George Orwell wrote “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”

And as Cicero would have noted were he alive today, it is folly to ignore.